There are many things that link these artists together but it is their differences that are more interesting. There is a fundamental contrast in approach and execution with each channeling their creativity in differing ways from drones and soundscapes, through melodic instrumental pieces to environmental recordings and opera. The artists presented here have created individual works that display a unique voice and emotion, all the while creating a collectively involving work that is rewarded with repeated listens.

‘edition sonoro’ are very pleased and indeed darn right proud to be bringing these artists together on ‘resonant embers’ and hope that listeners will enjoy the unique and emotional journey they have created.

First up, NWW collaborator, Matthew Waldron, re-cranks his irr. app. (ext.) vehicle for an discomfiting drive fuelled by a wierd mixture of dissonant effluvia. Inside “Whickering Mechanical Parapropalaehoplophorus” a slowly modulating sound hovers behind an up-close rattle and hum. Twisted moans and a buzz rendered with slapback echo (airplanes? Insect buzz?) infest the sound field. There ensues a woozy stagger attended by an ineffable feeling of fascinated discomfort. There are more corroded metal shapes and post-Industrial wastelands on “Animate structures No.1”, over which environmental collagist jgrzinich scatters a windblown array of field recordings of high tension wires and rummagings from the blasted post-Soviet heath of his adoptive Estonia. His piece sounds less like electronic music than the inarticulate speech of nature’s dark heart.

A mournful closure comes via doleful occasional black humorist, Andrew Liles, who plays it straight here; the breathy lilt of a violin steeped in Balkan noir emerges from some doom-laden low end-of-pianisms to unravel through ominous tolling. Liles’ “The Relentlessly Banal Landscape” strikes as a rather spare and sad affair, and fails to sound the right endnote for what proves to be a curate’s egg of a collection.– ALAN LOCKETT, e/i magazine

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Two CD releases resulting from the early sound collaborations between john grzinich and michael northam. extended minimal sound formations slowly evolve and drift out of constructed devices, primitive electronics and field recordings.